Wildfire News Of The Day (the Firebomber Publications blog) provides comprehensive international wildfire news. Subscribers include over 10,000 personnel from fire agencies, contractors, and government entities on five continents. "BEST NEWSLETTER I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY 32 YEARS IN THE FIRE SERVICE" - San Diego Fire Department Chief Brian Fennessy.

Wednesday, January 09, 2013

WILDFIRE NEWS OF THE DAY - 010913

The Bureau of Land Management's Fire and Aviation Program will be recruiting seasonal firefighters for work in Idaho through January 29th (1); while firefighters are working with university personnel to clear fire breaks around Cedar Hill, Texas (2). Rehabilitation efforts on Nebraska's Chadron State Park are expected to run through February (3). The Florida Forest Service will conduct controlled burns on 750 acres in Seminole State Forest tomorrow (4); and the Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve will be doing the same to improve habitat while reducing fuel for wildfires (5). Before the Maple Ridge, British Columbia, city council endorses a plan to create a wildfire buffer zone, it has a few questions for Canadian proponents (6); but Costa Rica’s National System of Conservation Areas has banned open fires due to gusty trade winds increasing the wildfire threat (7). Firefighters in New Zealand prepped for deployment to Australia to help battle the massive bushfires burning there (8). As fire agencies across Australia try to coordinate thousands of firefighters and apparatus on the ground, they are turning to space to conduct what the military calls C4I: Command, Control, Communications, Computing and Information (9); an astronaut snapping a few photos of the fires from the International Space Station (10); while the contribution of volunteer firefighters is examined by the next article (11); forecasts of cooler weather promising fire crews a bit of a breather (12); banks stepping in to suspend mortgage bills for people in bushfire-affected areas (13); but bushfires have taken their toll on wildlife across the continent (14). Victoria's government will be looking at some slow responses by Country Fire Authority during recent bushfires in Ballarat (15); even as fire crews grappled with a bushfire on Queensland's Bribie Island, one of 17 currently burning in the state (16). A homeowner from Hargraves, New South Wales, has been charged with starting a 140 ha bushfire while using a grinder on his veranda (17); and a 17,000 ha blaze has killed thousands of livestock near the town of Kentbruck (18); a BBC video taking a closer look at the aftermath of fires in that state (19); bushfires being blamed for outages by some cell phone providers (20). An easing of the bushfire threat in the Northern Territory has allowed authorities to reopen Watarrka National Park (21). A total of 148,000 acres was consumed by bushfires in Tasmania as of 1/7 (22); a dramatic series of photos of a family fleeing those bushfires being provided by the next article (23); while NASA's Terra satellite captures bushfire activity in that state in the one that follows (24); but authorities are amazed that there have been no reports of fatalities to date (25); even as evacuees begin to return home (26); some $900,000 in relief funds appearing in just 48 hours time (27). And finally, firefighters in Upstate New York found a handy use for their new air boat: rescuing a stranded deer!